What's the difference between a media brand and an individual with 50 million YouTube views?
Nothing!
Andrea Russett is a YouTube phenomenon. She has amassed over 700K Twitter followers, 1 million YouTube subscribers, 1.1 million Instagram followers, and 50 million YouTube views.
Speaking with me at hivio 2014 with her manager Phil Becker, here are some of the questions that Andrea and Phil answered:
How did you become a YouTube Star? How do you grow that kind of attention?
What do brands expect from a YouTube Star? How do they work with you?
How did you work on the … [Read more...]

I wanted to create an event that attracted a bevy of thoughtful future-oriented doers in the audio space, one that offered new ideas, inspiration, and compelling Q&A for radio, online radio, digital audio, and podcasting (I'm only pretending those are separate categories, of course). I also wanted to create an event that folks would be proud to attend not only because of the information and the networking, but also because it was just plain fun.
Here are some images from hivio 2014:
Tech galore - we're streaming live here:
Craig Bruce, Southern Cross Austereo's Head of … [Read more...]

Wouldn't it be great if the audio space had its own little version of SXSW? A place for the cool kids in and around the radio world to meet and play together? No matter if they were US or international, broadcasters, podcasters, commercial or public media, online radio, agencies, technologists in the audio space, storytellers, talent, or artists?
The wait is over.
Today I'm proud to announce the kickoff of the utterly unique hivio 2014 - the second annual audio future festival.
hivio returns to San Diego on June 4, and, like before, the event is FREE but by invitation only. The only … [Read more...]

What's the best way to develop new talent?
Is it to steal from the switchboard and upgrade to sidekick?
Is it to place a blind ad in an industry trade?
Is it to hire or voice-track a good-enough talent from another market where that talent's awareness in this market is zero?
You could steal somebody from across the street.
Or you could do what Phil Becker did.
Phil went to the Internet.
But he didn't recruit just anybody. He went for the locally-based YouTube talent who already has an audience and a following - over 250,000 YouTube subscribers and more ethan 100,000 … [Read more...]